Knowledge is Light — Global Heshmat

Knowledge is Light Mural

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The artist subsumes this sculpture as ‘Works in the Field’ together with a stone frieze at the entrance of the Nasser Military Academy (Military School Directory reference) and the other one at the Officers Club Theatre in Zamalek (120 square metres). The following artwork was at the entrance to the Red Sea Governorate in Hurghada. For the first (and most probably last time) Heshmat made a statue of a public figure, namely President Gamal Abdel Nasser “larger than life size“ in stone. A copy in metal can be found at his museum in Ain Shams. Early on, the sculptor took an interest in art in public spaces. In 1968, he created a 40-metre-wide mosaic in Hurghada on the Red Sea, which depicts the pillars of the Nasserist renaissance: the mother, the fellah (Egyptian peasant), the worker, the engineer and the student. The cover of his book reads: al-cilm nūr, ‘Knowledge is enlightenment’, which recurs frequently in Heshmat’s works.